Tatum O'Neal: Drug Bust "Saved" Me

NEW YORK — Tatum O'Neal told a newspaper columnist she is grateful to the New York City police officers who busted her for cocaine and saved her from herself.

"I'm still sober!" the 44-year-old actress told New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser in a phone call shortly after being released from custody Monday.

"Just when I was about to change that and wreck my life, the cops came and saved me! I was saved by the bell, by the guys in the Seventh Precinct."

O'Neal is due back in court July 28 to face a misdemeanor charge of possession of a controlled substance.

She was arrested Sunday night during a routine drug sweep in her Lower East Side neighborhood. Police said they found two bags of cocaine in her pants pocket.

O'Neal, the daughter of Ryan O'Neal and ex-wife of John McEnroe, has publicly chronicled her struggles with heroin and cocaine addiction. She said she has been sober in recent months, going to 12-step recovery meetings every day.

She told Peyser she had sought out drugs Sunday evening because she was sad about the death of her 16-year-old Scottish terrier _ but didn't take the drugs. She said she still hoped to celebrate a year of sobriety July 10.

"I couldn't get out of it. I was going to my psychiatrist. I was doing everything I could do. ... One day, I'm walking aimlessly. I found myself doing the wrong thing," she said.

O'Neal told Peyser spending 18 hours behind bars wasn't bad.

"I slept on a mattress with a couple of ladies because I was tired. ... And I thought the thing that was cool about New York, no special treatment. No special cell. It wasn't that horrible. I think it's worse for the people that don't have a lawyer to get them out."

O'Neal won a best supporting actress Oscar at 10 for 1973's "Paper Moon," becoming the youngest person ever to win an Academy Award.

Her career later foundered, but she revived it in recent years. She has a recurring role as the boozy Maggie Gavin in FX cable channel's drama "Rescue Me," now in production for its fifth and sixth seasons.

She detailed her troubles with drugs in a 2004 memoir, "A Paper Life."

Comments

[Frunobulax57]

Tatum goes to 12 Step Meetings everyday? Man! I am an ardent practitioner of the Twelve Steps and if I were going to seven meetings a week I would KNOW that I was not doing what that Program prescribes: Working with Others!

If I have time for all those meetings then no way am I working with others - trying to carry the (this) message. Poor Tatum is just more proof that "Meeting Makers" don't make it. 12 Step fellowships are supposed to exist with their 'Primary Purpose' - and that is NOT making lots of meetings. It is not the meetings you make - it IS the Steps you take - and faking it till you make it is a lie. Sorry, poor Tatum. If she would recover and go out and find another coked up knucklehead to help do the same then she would NEVER use again. Perhaps it is too drastic for her. It is for many.
Danny S - RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic

[sa]

methinks someone has a high octane
publicity team doing the play-by-play.

.

[meltingpot101]

Come On Tatum...Your kids need you.

[Irons]

LEAVE TATUM ALONE.

[dora rice]

THIS WEAKLING COULN'T BE SAVED IF HER LIFE DEPENDS ON AND IT DOES. WE WILL READ EVENTUALLY HER FUNERAL NOTICE. GOOD WRITTENS. WE HAVE ENOUGH DOPE HEADS AS IT IS.

[gifu]

I think the lack of sensitive humans w/ self-righteous, ignorant, hateful attitudes like yours are a far more pressing problem for the world @ large than "dope heads." Good writtens??? Try "riddance". Obviously your self-appointed job as an jaded, moralistic, anti-dope crusader left little room for any lessons in spelling or empathy.

[StrayTalk]

GOOD WRITTENS? Um.. maybe not so good write...psst, Cap locks left

[Bushgoesnucular]

If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.

George Orwell

[protagonia]

Dora,

Why are you such a miserable bully?

Why are you such a broken toy?

[SgtLazarus]

Didn't she get the memo on how the rich and famous obtain drugs, i.e. for a buck or two for cheap cigarette, get some lackey-loser to go do the pick-up.

[Agentlady007]

I'm sorry I meant to this day my sister is till trying to make amends for her rebellious nature. I think because she loved James Dean before I could talk.

[Agentlady007]

When I saw 'Paper Moon' I remember my parents bickering to themselves of reasons why me and my sister and brother should not watch it. I rember yelling at them saying it was television, so it must be airing for some reason. Why should we not see it? They explained because a little girl is smoking a cigarette and it is not unlike Cabaret only with a child and it is contraversial. I remember saying " let me see it" ( I wasn't raised to be afraid you see, of anything.) So I was allowed to.. In many ways I realized I would NEVER be like that character. My sister - however three years older, thought this was cart blanche to be who she wanted to be. She was poet, lover, and independent all at the same time. To this day she regrets being my real sister, who I had to forget because she had friends to take my place who believed in hwer reblious nature. They were all richer than the Jones'. Money talks.

[Agentlady007]

There's an "postulate" 9 This is a mocked up word from L ron Hubbard's dictionary in a book he wrote called simply ' Ethics ' which explains his words he's "created opurtside of Webster and American Heritage dictionaries, and he describes postulate as a thought that is so concrete in your mind as much as a wish like when you were a little child knowing this dream was really going to come true one day, and it does...and explains how this was because your mind told you YOU were good enough to believe in yourself so much so, that anything was possible with hope and a belief that you were just as important as God telling you - you could move a mountain- if God explained why this motion happening and you understood your position in the otion meant the meaning for it's transition of all things to all places and to love beyond doubt. This is what we live for. IMO.

[Houstonking]

I think she is probably lying through her teeth about being sober for a year. Her excuse of being caught reminded me sadly of the preacher who bought meth but never used it.

[WorldsGreatestActor]

What you think is really irrelevant, isn't it? I have sat in the same AA rooms as she has for the better part of 2 years and watched her struggle to grow and stay sober. I can't say for sure if she has been totally clean but it's none of my business at the end of the day. I can say that she has worked hard and has helped others with their struggles. It amazes me how many people out there want to pass judgement on people like Tatum. You should ask yourself why you even care if she is lying or not. Try taking your own inventory for a change. Maybe you'll discover that you're no better or worse than your fellows and and therefore you shouldn't sit in judgement of them.

[biglover]

I hope she makes it. I think she has been through hell with a narcissistic father and a domineering husband. My hopes are with her.

[shroomingnewman]

just let the woman smoke some crack. she isn't hurting anyone.

[Testtubebaby]

How many of those do you need to be saved? Tell it to the judge, you're use to it.

[Jsens3]

Tatum ONeal is just a common criminal drug addict. Who cares what she says or does. Oh, she lies too.

[Cybesq]

Wow, you sound just like Rush Limbaugh. Remember when Jerry Garcia died and Rush said, "Just another dead doper"? Of course that was a few years before Rush found himself asking his maid to get him a paper bag full of oxycontin and deliver it to him in a parking lot.

You might wanna ease up on the judgmental crap. By the way, who the F cares what you say or do?

[walk0nwalls]

You are a mean, mean person.

[NTO08]

I hope that someone in your family experiences drug addiction...will you say the same thing to them???

[andvoodoo2]

O' Neal was almost surely lying when she claimed she was "still sober" and that the police saved her from using again after (she claims) almost a year of being clean. Seriously, what are the odds this was her first attempted at getting high in a year and she got busted? She just doesn't want to go back to rehab.

[Pippilangstrumpf]

Studies have been done that show that people who use substances to get through a difficult time are more adaptable to change than teetotalers.

Sometimes, some people need whatever they need to get them through. Those who judge and assume need to walk a mile in someone else's shoes once or twice.

[andvoodoo2]

I have been sober for 17 years. Something that helped me stay sober was this:

There is no problem alcohol can't make worse.

Although you probably meant well, your post is not what an alcoholic or an addict needs to hear. There will always be "difficult time(s)" for all of us. And, if the addict or alcoholic could limit their use to just "get through a difficult time", they wouldn't have a substance abuse problem in the first place.

[KOisGod]

Agreed, getting through a difficult time by getting boozed up or drugged out, is just masking ourselves from facing, and concquering what we need to experience in the present moment.

When under the influence, we make error filled decisions, have poor judgement and later say, "what was I thinking!" We weren't, we were avoiding.

Get issues over with, cry, scream, yell, pound a pillow - pick up the broken pieces and move on.

[walk0nwalls]

Yeah, it's worth noting that there are better coping mechanisms than substance abuse. Substance abuse is just masking the problem. I know this for a fact every time i down those seven pints of ice cream every time i break up.

SEVEN PINTS

[rektruax]

Gee... Why doesn't anyone ever say users need to walk in the teetotalers shoes?

That, and while the pretty white lady celebrity has a misdemeanor charge, what of the seller? Yeah... the mean old "pusher-man", who would be out of business if there weren't buyers. Looks like they play an equal role to me.